A whole year?

Random travel notes

• Bidets are perfect for hand-washing clothes. Great for soaking your feet after a long day of sightseeing, too.
• While flipping through channels on the TV in our hotel room in Paris we noticed that they were mostly in English and German. Chloe said they saw the same thing in the south of Spain so we theorized that those must be the free cable channels.
• On our drive from the airport to our hotel in Paris I checked the speedometer: 160 kilometers per hour, just about 100 miles per hour. Cool, but there was no sensation of going fast because we were keeping pace with traffic.
• A charming hotel room quickly turns into hell when there is no air conditioning. Don't let them fool you: a fan is not enough.
• The small hotels we've stayed in have worked out great for us, but now I've confirmed what I've always suspected: I enjoy the anonymity of a larger hotel devoid of intimidating personalities. I'm a failure at travel of the backdoor variety. I'm always afraid I'm going to get yelled at for doing something wrong, like bringing food into the room (expressly forbidden in our Paris hotel). In Rome, the maid scared me (I at first took her to be a disgruntled guest because we'd hear her complaining in the hallway to no one in particular), and here in Paris I can feel the maid's impatient glare through the door. I didn't come to Paris to sleep, but nor did I come to be herded out of my room at the crack of noon.
• At 11:00 PM we watched the Eiffel Tower light up and sparkle. It was still that way at 12:30 AM, the last time I checked.
• I haven't yet seen a hotel hairdryer-on-the-wall that's worth the space it would save in my luggage if I were to leave mine at home.
• A little refrigerator in the hotel room is darn near on my necessity list.
• Next time I will bring a water bottle and not rely on buying bottled water (could easily spend more than $25 a day for one person and there are few places to refill one) or even on buying a bottle of water and refilling it in the hotel, which was my original plan. I get tired of carrying stuff around and I'm much less likely to throw away a water bottle than I am to throw away an empty bottle of water.
• It's true - pop is more expensive than wine, especially in eating establishments. And forget about free refills. It's also true that if chilly beverages are a deal-breaker for you you'd better stay home.
• It doesn't have to be too hot before it is far too hot to lug a backpack around. Just about everyone - men and women - carry different shapes of bags diagonally across their chests. In Rome I bought a purse-kind of thing that wasn't too big and did the same as the Spaniards and the Romans and now the French. It became our lifeline filled with everything we'd need for the day and with the things I wouldn't leave in our rooms: passports, train and plane tickets, money, debit card, water, snacks, maps, Vaseline Lip Therapy, which is like crack to me. But backpacks are great to haul around extra stuff at airports, bus, and train stations, as long as the zippers are locked.
• Those suitcases that convert to backpacks? Yeah, no one uses them. I have several and have never used them as backpacks. Rick Steves said his company doesn't sell one anymore for that reason. But I can't begin to imagine a suitcase without wheels.
• Plan on your luggage getting smashed and being opened by TSA. Better to plan on it than be surprised.
• When suitcase shopping, thicker is not better. There were many places where our largish suitcases fit, but wouldn't have if they had been just an inch thicker. Everything is crowded and your time will be more pleasant if you're not angering every person whose knees you bash every time you walk down the aisle.
• Heed all the warnings about safeguarding your wallet and valuable documents, but you don't need to be psychotic about it - common sense is enough. A guy at the train station in Rome was begging for help to get his suitcases from Left Luggage because his wallet had been stolen and the claim ticket was in it. The place was busy and the people behind the counter were not making his life any easier. They asked where his wallet had been and he patted his now-empty back pocket. Any sympathy they may have had vanished with that admission. He told them, nicely if a little desperately, that if they didn't help him find his luggage quickly  (amid thousands of bags) he would miss his train. They shrugged.
• Before I left I bought fancy-pants laminated folding maps of the major cities we visited. I had fun looking at them in my compulsive zeal before I left, but didn't need them in Europe. The ubiquitous free maps available everywhere and handed out automatically at our hotels (and stores, train, subway, and bus stations) were better, newer, and easier to follow. And I could get several: one for each day because I discovered that helpful people tend to draw all over them when you ask them them directions. That was great, but I get confused easily so I was able to start clean every day.

Parking, Roman style

After observing drivers in Rome, my guess is that holding up traffic to get out of this parking space is not of paramount concern to this driver:

Temporary daughter takes off

Last night I picked up Alicia at the airport from her trip to Chicago. This morning we went back to the airport so she could leave for her Rotary trip to San Francisco, Hollywood, the beach, Disneyland, Universal Studios, Las Vegas (for the Fourth of July), the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and I don't remember where else. Of the twelve inbounds in the Seattle district, ten of them are going on this trip (out of a total of about 54). Fifty-plus kids from many different countries traveling on a bus (and camping) through the American west for a couple of weeks. There has been a lot of ethnic and racial intolerance throughout the world to read about lately, and I see this trip as a partial antidote to that poison. It makes me hopeful just to think about it.

We swapped suitcases, Alicia left some things here that Christopher can take back to her host parents before she gets back (she decided - after a prudent count - that seventeen t-shirts was a bit much for a fourteen-day trip), and she was off. Her host parents will pick her up in a couple of weeks and then she leaves for home the next day. She'll get home a couple of days after Chloe and I leave her house in Pamplona.

It was great to see her again for a brief time and we (Steve, Christopher, my mom, and Steve's sister) got to say goodbye. At the airport we were at the Alaska Air ticket counter (several of them) for about an hour sorting out another boy's ticket. His travel agent booked him on the wrong flight even though months ago he'd forwarded Alicia's itinerary to the travel agent and told her that's the flight he needed to be on. I told him to be charming (his usual demeanor anyway) because there were no seats left on the flight, except in first class. His charm wasn't necessary because the ticket agent couldn't have been more helpful and took care of everything (I think he was a sucker for a group of international students traveling in the US). Then they (four of them) were off to the security line. Because they were all there it wasn't so bad saying goodbye to Alicia. I hugged her and told her I'd be seeing her again. As I was walking away she said, confused, "Wait, when?" I choked out, "Sometime." It's easier to say See you again than it is to say Goodbye.

The ticketing snafu was a valuable demonstration of why it's not a good idea to leave a passenger at the airport doors and then drive off (the case with two of the students, including the one with the ticketing problem). These are intelligent kids and they would have eventually gotten it figured out, but having a native-English speaking adult there helped to pave the way to a successful resolution.

We can spend more

Good news on the international monetary front if you're American and traveling to Europe. A short time ago (less than a month, I think), a euro cost about $1.35. Today, it's just under $1.23. There's nothing we can do about it so I don't get too worked up when the dollar tanks even further against the euro and the pound (as it's been wont to do for more than a year). But this is a nice surprise for families going to Europe to pick up their exchange-student kids. Yea for the countries voting down adoption of the European Union constitution. The EU can work on France and the Netherlands (and Great Britain and Poland . . . ) after we get home. I'm sure there's a name (or several) for that kind of thinking.

Riding the European rails

There is a misconception that European train travel is cheap - not so. Everyone asks if we're getting Eurail passes for our trip. Depending on where and when you want to go, the many discount airlines can be much cheaper and much faster. For a two-month backpacking trek, a Eurail pass is probably the way to go, but for shorter travel periods, especially to major European cities, it's not so clear. But we are taking three trains from Paris on because the schedule works better and that's the only way (other than driving) to get to the small northern German town (where my grandfather is from) we're going to because it's sort of on our way to Copenhagen, our departure city.

When buying train tickets, the standard advice is that it's a good idea to get reservations during busy times or if you absolutely have to be on a specific train or if you'd like a window seat, a table, or an aisle seat. Some trains require reservations, but on most they are optional. We had a bad experience on a train from London to Inverness in the middle of February because who goes to the UK in the middle of February (one of our Scottish/formerly American hosts asked us, "February? Scotland? Are you mad?") and I was laughed at by the AAA travel agent when I asked about seat reservations for a UK train in the middle of February ("Nobody goes to England in February."). What we didn't know is that it was a school holiday and we were extremely lucky to get seats for the eight-hour trip, so I'm now a big fan of seat reservations. After we'd gotten settled in our seats after a frantic few minutes racing for space and places to stow our four-months worth of luggage I heard an American voice behind us: "This is ridiculous. We wouldn't have come if we'd known they had school vacation, too."

But getting reservations (and sometimes point-to-point tickets) turns out to not be as easy as I've been lead to believe. Nowhere on any Web site I've found has it said it's impossible to make reservations from the US on many trains because they are "too local," and two of our three trains are apparently too local. We'll have to wait until we get to Europe and then go to a train station and hope we're not too late. Not only that, but neither I nor the travel agent could get tickets (let alone reservations) from Berlin to Flensburg (a standard route with multiple trains per day and the middle leg of our trip from Paris to Copenhagen) from Eurail - I had to go to a German rail Web site and order them directly. So now I have an online ticket printed entirely in German. On this one I was able to get reservations and it says Fenster on it, so, thanks to a year of college German, at least I know we got window seats. Don't remember too much about the transportation chapter, though, so I'll have to dust off my textbook so we don't end up on the Midnight Express.

I had never given Eurail much thought and so had a vague notion that it was one system and that all the trains in all of Europe said Eurail in big, bright shiny letters on the side of the gleaming cars. If I'd traveled to Europe before (Eurail doesn't do the UK, although it does cover Ireland) I would have realized that it's an umbrella organization that sells tickets for some of the dozens and dozens of different rail lines: local, regional, national, and even some private lines. One more thing to be aware of: train travel in Europe may take more than Eurail and you may not be able to buy all of your tickets or make reservations before you leave.

Cough::nerd::cough

Another geeky travel tip that you might have read elsewhere. It's a good idea for all travelers to make copies of passports, plane and train tickets, visas, etc. and bring one copy with us and keep one copy at home so that if we toss our luggage overboard in a fit of borderless exuberance while abroad someone can get the copies to us by mail or fax. Just try convincing immigration officials that you don't need documentation because you are a citizen of the world. Imagine there's no countries . . .

A photocopy of your passport is not going to work where a real passport is required, but it can make getting a replacement easier. Although, on her trip to the south of Spain, Chloe brought the photocopy of her passport just in case she needed it for identification because she didn't want to worry about losing her actual passport. They ended up staying in a hostel in Madrid unexpectedly (and were left to their own devices to find a place to stay for the night) and the management accepted her photocopy as proper ID.

I'm bringing copies with me, but rather than leave another set of copies at home, I'm scanning all of my tickets, hotel confirmations, and passport and e-mailing them to myself. If I lose anything, I can get to my Gmail account from any computer anywhere in the world and print out the lost documents myself. If you do the same thing with all of your exchange student's documentation before she leaves, she'll always have access to it. Of course, not everyone will have Internet access on their exchange, but chances are that someone in a nearby village will.

Thinking too much

I've been getting ready for our trip, which means lots and lots of logistical details and cross referencing of rail and air schedules with travel agents, checking online, and direct phone calling. No one source seems to have all of the information, and they're always surprised when they can't find the answer to what should be a simple question ("You can check our Web site." Gosh, wish that had occurred to me.). Which is why I end up talking to a human being in the first place, but they never believe me until they get on the phone and I hear, "Hmm. Really? How can that be? You really can't see a train from Berlin to Flensburg? But she has a printout right here showing a train from Berlin to Flensburg, but can't get reservation or fare information. I don't know. Are you sure? Well, okay." Then, "They can't see a train from Berlin to Flensburg." Which is where we started ten minutes ago: How do I buy a ticket from Berlin to Flensburg?

To further prepare for Spain, I'm rereading The Sun Also Rises. Jake is still in France but he'd better get to Pamplona and the damn bulls pretty soon or I'm going to lose interest. I was half awake all night while my brain went over travel details in a Hemingway cadence:

"I should check the train."

"Why? Just fly."

"The plane leaves too early. Maybe the train is better."

"So take the train."

"Take the train. I don't know if that's the best way."

"Don't be a fool. Just decide."

"Can't decide. Don't know what I've overlooked."

"Who cares? Decide."

"Oh, go to hell."

"You go to hell."

"I'm sorry. Don't go to hell. Sometimes I say nasty things."

"You don't mean to."

"No. You're my best friend."

"Heaven help you. Better have another porto, old chap."

When I explained to Steve why I was mostly awake all night, he assured me that a mental Hemingway-esque dialogue about boring travel details is something that will never trouble his slumber.

And culture

My guess is a palace of some sort - Madrid?

Art

I didn't hear about them going here so I'm just guessing, but it looks very Guggenheim Bilbao-ish.

Blue building

No idea what or where this is, but that looks like a huge something made of flowers or a block of cheese gone horribly wrong. [I now this is at the Guggenheim Bilbao].